Uncertainty gripped the coastal city of Puerto Vallarta on Monday after the killing of a prominent cartel boss, leaving the Mexican resort city shrouded in smoke and unease.
On Sunday, Mexicans and tourists alike had huddled inside across Mexico as gangs struck back, following the Mexican government’s killing of a longtime leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, an extremely powerful criminal organization. The U.S. government advised Americans to “shelter in place” in parts of Mexico.
But by midmorning on Monday signs of life were slowly returning in Puerto Vallarta.
Seana Pedelaborde, an American tourist who had sheltered in place all of Sunday with her mother, stood among hundreds of people who had lined up, almost around the block, to go to one of the first grocery stores that had reopened.
Just hours earlier, she said, when commuters would normally have been going to work and students would have been going to school, the major highway next to her hotel was almost empty.
“It’s just a ‘wait-and-see situation,’” said Ms. Pedelaborde, 59, who lives in California and owns a jewelry company.
The unrest that had convulsed the streets the day before appeared to have mostly died down. But many Mexicans and tourists are still uncertain about what the next few days, or even hours, could bring.
The cartel has vowed to seek revenge. Many people across the country are still wary of more gunfire.
Even tourists who are able to leave their hotels to get supplies are not sure what their next move will be. Several airlines have canceled some flights, including United, Delta, American and Alaska. Those airlines have issued travel advisories for airports in Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara, waiving change fees for passengers whose itineraries are affected.
Mitchell Fain, an actor from Chicago, said in a text on Monday that he was also sheltering at his hotel in Puerto Vallarta, just a few miles south down the beach from where Ms. Pedelaborde and her mother were staying.
On Sunday, he and his partner were at a beach club when black smoke filled the sky.
“It smells burnt,” he said in a phone interview on Sunday evening.
Like many tourists, they were concerned about reaching the airport. There are limited transportation options because some main roads have been closed by blockades.
“It’s like, how are we going to get the hell out of here?” he said on Sunday.
Edward Power, a writer, was eating breakfast with his wife at their Puerto Vallarta hotel, when they spotted thick plumes of smoke over the Malecón, the city’s beachfront promenade.
Mr. Power, who had lived off and on in Puerto Vallarta for the past decade, said Sundays on the Malecón were usually crowded.
This Sunday, he said by phone, it was “completely empty. Dead.”
By Monday morning, Ms. Pedelaborde said, the smell of burning tires, which had forced its way into her tightly shut windows overnight, had dissipated. But the fear had not.
Her mother’s neighbors traded frantic texts about the gunmen in their rural mountain village, around a 90-minute drive from Puerto Vallarta. Security guards at the hotel told her some grocery stores in Puerto Vallarta were still closed.
And Ms. Pedelaborde, desperate for coffee, wondered when she could safely find breakfast. (Their hotel cafe was closed.)
“We all feel safe at this hotel,” she said, just before 8 a.m. local time. By then, only a few guests had thought about venturing out for supplies. “No one is too eager to get out into the street and see what happens.”
By midmorning, she was out and about. A Canadian man staying nearby invited her in for coffee and bagels.
Amelia Nierenberg is a Times reporter covering international news from London.
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